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JFK SWC is the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center. It is POSSIBLE that the wings were sold there.
The HALO badge is a current badge and can be purchased at almost any army clothing sales store.
I would not be concerned that this one could be a fake.
The wing is awarded in three grades, basic, senior and master with the use of the same star and wreath and star design to denote the upper grades.
Allan

quote name='Allan H.' date='Oct 13 2007, 03:12 AM' post='68489']JFK SWC is the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center. It is POSSIBLE that the wings were sold there.The HALO badge is a current badge and can be purchased at almost any army clothing sales store.I would not be concerned that this one could be a fake.The wing is awarded in three grades, basic, senior and master with the use of the same star and wreath and star design to denote the upper grades.Allan[/quote]

I believe what you have is one of the "prototype" wings. I've been told that the JFK SWC at Fort Bragg had these made up in the 3 grades (Basic, Senior, Master). I have a similar set of these, but mine aren't hallmarked. The ones I have are much larger than the approved wings and are 3 1/2 inches wide. I also have Master and Senior wings in a stabrite finish made by The Supply Room in Anniston, Alabama, that are smaller than the approved design, but I think they are larger than the official miniature wings at 1 3/4 inches wide.

The officially approved wings come only in Master and Basic levels (no Senior) and are just under 2 inches wide.

The Freefall Parachutist Course is administered by the JFK Special Warfare Center. I'm sure there may be other early variations of these wings out there. I doubt that any of these early wings were made up in very large quantities.

I've attached a picture of my HALO wings.

Laury

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JFK SWC is the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center. It is POSSIBLE that the wings were sold there.The HALO badge is a current badge and can be purchased at almost any army clothing sales store.I would not be concerned that this one could be a fake.The wing is awarded in three grades, basic, senior and master with the use of the same star and wreath and star design to denote the upper grades.Allan

I believe this is the older badge that only could be worn while assigned to US Army Special Operations Command or subordinate commands. Note that's not currently called the HALO badge. The current authorized badge is called the Military Freefall Parachute Badge. There are only two authorized grades Basic and Jumpmaster. The version with the star only is not currently worn. See:http://www.qmmuseum....efall_badge.htm

Laury - Looks like you beat me to the punch! Here are my badges. The top one is an older unauthorized instructor badge. It is marked 1 SOCOM. Several years ago I visited the Institute of Heraldry looking for background on this badge. They had little, not even the standard info sheets that they have on other badges. About all they had of use was a letter from James Phillips authorizing the government to use the current design. Although authorized the badge is still not listed on their badges webpage:http://www.tioh.hqda...sArmyBadges.htm

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Neat!!! Yours are a different version that I don't remember seeing before. I had thought about the point you made that these badges aren't on the IOH website. I was going to go there and get the "official" measurements for the full size and mini badges, then remembered it wasn't there. I read somewhere that several different designs were made up as prototypes by the JFK SWC and I guess 1st SOCOM as well. A while back several of these showed up on Ebay and I they were all hallmarked "JFK SWC" as I recall. I guess someone there did some spring cleaning??? I'm surprised they didn't go to the museum though....some of them may have???

I always thought they are a good looking badge and resemble a lot of the foreign jump wings. You don't see them very often outside of the SF community.

Laury - I picked it up at the clothing sales store at Bragg over a decade ago. It's the first time I ever remember seeing this badge. I see folks wearing this badge frequently as we have a large number of parachute riggers near were I work. Kevin

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Those look very much like my early badges. Mine are very heavy too and have 3 clutches on the reverse instead of the usual 2. Mine may be a later version after the ones you have, which may explain the extra clutch back....the first ones may have been too heavy to lay properly on the uniform. If these are from the early 1980's, which I believe them to be, I don't think the Army was wearing any decorations or badges on the green shirts unless the soldier was in a warm weather climate and they were authorized by the local commander (such as Panama, Hawaii, etc.). That wasn't authorized Army-wide until several years later.

I got mine at a small Army surplus store that operated for several years outside of Fort McClellan, Alabama. They were part of a very small stock they had stuck back on the bottom shelf. This would have been over 10 years ago now. The base and the surplus store are both closed now.

The large JFK-SWC versions were in fact prototypes and only suggested designs. The smaller versions were finally adopted as the official Military Free Fall Parachutist Badge for graduates of The Military Free Fall Course at Fort Bragg and The military free fall Jumpmaster Course. There is no official senior MFF Parachutist badge. The Type 2 designs included the three grades like the 1st type plus Instructor grades with both a silver or gold colored "I" superimposed on the badge for INSTRUCTOR. These are all marked 1st SOCOM for 1st Special Operations Command. These were never approved either and are just interesting examples of suggested designs. The two current wings are now approved badges. Former CJCS Hugh Shelton wore his HALO wings on his uniform during his tour as Chairman.

The JFK-SWC wings (Type I) first appeared in the 1980's, I believe around 1983-84 timeframe. There had been talk for years about a HALO MFF parachute badge. The 1st SOCOM wings (Type II) came later around 1986-87 and The design was actually used on patches and coins at the time. A lot of people thought that the Type II (1st SOCOM marked wings) would be approved. That was not to be. The type III or smaller version was approved in the 1990's, 1st for local wear by those qualified then later Army wide. I believe all services have now approved their wear. I hope that helps. Robert

I bought a set back in about 2005 from a guy at the Ft Belvoir show that had several of them (five or six, IIRC). He wanted $5 a pop for them, and I figured "why not?" I think I turned them on eBay for around $20 or so a couple years later. I'm trying to find my photo of them...if I can find it, I'll post it.

Interesting topic...What's your tough of those ones ? I recently acquired them thinking they could be another US prototype...I made lot of researches for worldwide freefall / Halo badges, and found nothing similar used by foreign countries.